Woman processes blindness with words

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Before we ever met, I had a soft spot for Arlene Wicker.

She was an elementary schoolteacher for 24 years. She once volunteered to teach a school custodian how to read, and she did – tutoring him for 10 years. She likes to read the newspaper, for which I can't thank her enough.

Wicker had a plan for her golden years: to retire from teaching in June of 2000 and take a trip across the country. Nothing went according to plan.

When she was diagnosed with macular degeneration in 1989 at age 54, she didn't know what it was. What she learned was scary, but she adjusted.

Then one day in 1999, she couldn't read street signs anymore. With only peripheral vision, she was legally blind. Suddenly she had to retire – painfully divesting Room 12 of its accumulated treasures and her days of their structure.

“I had to rethink my dreams.”

Wicker herself, well, she has a soft spot for writing.

Adjusting to the shock

For adults with fading vision, their world can constrict along with their eyesight.

“I had to sit hours with nothing to do,” recalls Wicker, who lives in Anaheim. “I've always been a Type A personality. It's just a shock to your system.”

Being unable to drive, she would later write, was making her crazy. She felt housebound, lonely and depressed: the black place where she cried and screamed. She missed reading effortlessly.

Eventually Wicker challenged herself to brave the public bus system, meticulously planning an eight-mile ride solo to the doctor's office. It went like clockwork, her first personal best.

Next time, she would learn to use a transfer.

In 1999, Wicker started free classes at the Braille Institute in Anaheim, learning “survival” skills that taught her confidence – in the kitchen, at the computer keyboard and out navigating the world.

There are tricks to learn: using rubber bands to tell objects apart, folding money according to denomination, shaving and picking up a knife already knowing which side of the blade is sharp.

But there is more.

The Braille Institute is a cluster of old houses surrounding courtyards and a fountain. It's a lively place with a tranquil core. Walking with white canes or the occasional guide dog, nobody rushes. The only traffic jam is from Access buses waiting for afternoon pickup.

Volunteers, who outnumber the staff 13 to 1, teach classes including sculpting, knitting, drums, line dancing and American history.

For Wicker, though, emotional salvation came through writing.

“I had a lot of things to say.”

Writing as a release

Each week for 14 years, Barbara Keller, 87, has been dedicated to the writing group she leads. She volunteers because her own mother lost her vision.

The size of the group fluctuates, but old-timers remember past members because the stories they shared are lodged in their memories.

Over the years, writing has helped them peel off the layers like treatments at the spa. Exposing their feelings is cathartic.

“Our emotions take us right back to the times we succeed and the times we failed,” Keller said. “In this group, we learn each other well.”

Daniel Holder, who lost his vision in his mid-30s, has been in the class for 12 years. He writes searing poems of self-awareness.

Marguerite Milkie joined the class in 2004. She writes about the Happy Times retirement home and the semi-larcenous thoughts of Jake, who drives the old folks. Angie Wahab expresses memories of her native Nigeria.

Wicker joined the group in 2000, took a break after five years, and is delighted to be back – happily settled in her favorite spot where her thoughts are most comfortable.

She has always written, a relief valve through divorce and the loss of her brother. She muses about her two children, two grandchildren and two great-grandsons.

Everyone types on computers, using special technology that enlarges the text. Some use programs that read it back.

Keller reads to the group, offering honest but gentle suggestions. Only Wicker, peering through a magnifying glass at her 20-point type, reads her own composition aloud.

The Braille Institute offers a basic support group – a kind of visual impairment 101. Wicker took it twice. But this writing group helped her process her feelings.

“At first, I didn't want to be grouped with blind people. … In this group, I could write down my feelings. That was helpful.”

Gradually, low vision becomes a fact of your life. Yes, these folks have visual impairment, but they are so over it.

“There are no limits to what you can do,” said Milkie, who recounts indignantly how she was rejected for jury duty because of her impaired vision.

“If they can't tell you are blind, it's doesn't matter,” she huffs. “I lost my eyesight – not my mind.”

Wicker appears to have everything together.

She's got that competent air of a good fourth-grade teacher about her. While she was on sabbatical from this group, she visited Hawaii and Paris and took in all the “sights.”

Some old friends, she acknowledges, are hesitant to be around her.

“They don't pity you, but they know what you had dreamed. … But they forget the life you have made without eyesight.”

Her writing chronicles that journey.

She missed students and tutored for several years. In a charming essay, Wicker describes her pleasure tutoring Kevin, a sixth-grade student.

One afternoon Kevin told her that Tuesdays and Thursdays, the days they met, were his best days. That's the kind of compliment you can dine off for weeks.

“Writing and teaching will set me free of the blues,” Wicker wrote. “Kevin's best days may be Tuesdays and Thursdays; mine are Monday and every day.”

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